The Journey of Rube: last few days in Bangkok

The third installment to the blog. Sorry about the delay, but i've been doing the yoga inward growth journey path thing for the last 3 weeks, with 2 weeks to go, and where i'm staying internet access is slow and limited. So here i am today on my day off updloading some pics for yall to enjoy. The next lot of pics will have some of the retreat center and students there, these are all from Bangkok.

Hope everyone is well :)

-Steve

Me and my friend Saiyud who owns the internet cafe across the street from my guesthouse. She used to get a kick out of telling the lady boys who work at the salon next door that I thought they were cute, then watch them approach me for chit chat. Had some good laughs with her, a really sweet person, and she had great prices on all services offered, 20 baht (about 66 cents) for an hour of internet, cheap laundry, and delicious fresh fruit shakes for 10 or 15 baht, same thing cost 65 baht in my guest house. Its funny in Thailand the huge price discrepancies you can find for the same thing right next to each other

the next several pictures were all taken at the grand palace. i kept putting off going there because you have to wear long pants and proper shoes (no sandals). I finally sucked it up and got a private tour from this very informative and quirky lil thai woman. It really is a special place, very inspiring.

just hanging between a demon and a monkey, the monkey is barefoot of course

"you guys mind if I take a picture with you 2?" I get no response. i'll take that as a yes, say cheese guys, sheesh

me in front of some Thai bonsai trees, much larger that the Japanese one's obviously
thought this pic looked cool with the sun setting over the roof

me and my informative, comical, and quirky tour guide through the grand palace, money well spent rather than just cruising it in 20 minutes not knowing what anything is.

This is what i'm talking about, tasty fresh and hot street pad thai with garlic, egg, peanuts, sprouts, a touch of soy, and your choice of noodle, 66 cents. Then i was adding some spicy dried pepper kicking it up a notch. I think i ate this once a day for almost a week.

this pic was taken while on a bicycle tour of Bangkok i took with my Dutch friends. Its a natural farm provided by nature of a vegetable that they eat in soups. This Dutch guy Co Van Kessel started a bicycle tour company 30 years ago, I guess he's a bit of a legend in Holland, so naturally when we arrived in the heart of China Town for the tour, it was 13 Dutch travelers and yours truly repping sunny Florida. The tour starts out in China town, through all these back alleys behind restaurants and housing, seeing how these people live, then you get on a long boat with your bike and head down river, and see some of the countryside and rural areas, small villages, etc, so cool back in there, and some sketchy riding too on narrow paths with water on both sides.

man made banana farm directly across from the nature made one in the pic above.

small town school girls just hanging out and waving at us as we rode by

Even though some of these towns may seem poor, they seem to spare little expense when it comes to gigantic Buddahs and elegant temples, pretty amazing

cute lil boy feeding fish behind the big budda above for good luck. just after i took this, he accidentaly dropped the whole bag of food in the water at once at started a mini feeding frenzy, i gave him my bag of fish and he commenced normal feeding

here's me attempting to catch some ZZZ's on the boat ride back to China town just after jumping in a pick up game of indoor soccer with some local thai boys at the end of the half day bike tour. those nimble thai dudes made me seem like i was playing in cement boots, but I saved some face after getting burned half a dozen times with a hard shot on goal that the keeper couldn't handle which i followed up and scored. The thai boys were definately having fun toying with me and the dutch guys in the game, yet were still very respectful after we were done shaking hands and all that.